JOIN US From broken and rickety buses to dilapidated buildings crying for renovation and paint, the loss-making Delhi Transport Corporation has many woes to tend to.
Though city transport minister Ramakant Goswami is making every effort to plug the holes and make DTC a profitable venture, it does not look like a possibility in the near future.
Even his efforts to hire more doctors for DTC is giving anxious moments to officials — simply because not many qualified doctors are interested in a job with the corporation.
Soon after taking over as transport minister in September this year, Goswami had given a go ahead for appointment of more doctors at 46 DTC depots after he learnt about their shortage. Employees were facing problems due to lack of doctors.
Then the department had published advertisements to fill up 10 vacancies — nine part-time allopathy doctors and one permanent homeopathy doctor.
But DTC is not enthused with the response it got. “Not much response has come, but it is a face-saving move. While 73 have applied for the single post of homeopathy doctor, we got only about 80 applications for the nine part-time vacancies,” said a senior DTC official.
“We are still hoping to get some more applications from really qualified doctors,” said the official, adding that not many who have applied so far have impressive resumes.
Appointments will made after the scrutiny committee goes through all the resumes and shortlist candidates for an interview.
Current strength
The official said currently there is one chief medical officer and nine other doctors working with the DTC, which has some 28,000 permanent and about 10,000 contractual employees.
“The DTC manual says there should be a doctor at each depot. We need at least 36 doctors since some of the depots are clubbed together at one place.
For example, Hari Nagar depot also caters to two other depots, and Banda Bahadur Marg depot houses yet another depot,” said the official.
“But we have been managing with just 10 doctors for about two years or so since no new appointments were made. Now, with the additional appointments, at least things will be better then they are now,” he said.
The official said in case of serious ailment, any employee can be referred to one of the several hospitals with which DTC is empaneled.
DTC is also struggling to fill the post of one medical officer. Things began moving on this front in June this year, but the corporation is still sending reminders to the director of city health services to find a candidate.